Star Wars: A New Hope
by ThatOneHopefulKid
Summary: Four Imperial Cadets join the rebellion. Warnings:OCs and AU.


**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This is my friend's story. He asked me to post this for him since he doesn't have a lot of access to a computer.

I will send any and all reviews to him via text.

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. My friends owns all the .**

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

Imperial

19 years after the battle of Mustafar

10 months before the battle of Yavin

I really didn't want to be on this shuttle, according to the laws I could get out at any time. However, the gruff stormtroopers that guarded the 'shuttle' disagreed with that fact. "Scared?" asked a female voice full of challenge. I turned to look at her, "No," I answered, hopefully she wouldn't hear the lie in my voice. She gave me a glare. "Don't lie to me." Now I was scared of her, few people could tell if I was lying and all of those had been people who had known me for years. "Yes," I answered meekly, she smiled. "So am I." I gave her a flabbergasted look. "What are you here for?" she asked, this was a corrections shuttle, youths were sent to Imperial Academies. I looked down, "I stole a Moff's speeder, and then drove it through an oncoming traffic lane. I didn't get caught 'till I tried to sell it, the dealer called the stormies." She let out a large laugh, still smiling, "I drove a pod racer out of a museum and evaded the _larties_ until it ran out of fuel." I wanted to worship this teen, I had dreamed of flying a racer for years. She reached out and closed my mouth, I hadn't even realized it was open. "How old are you?" she asked. "Sixteen in two months." I answered, "You?" "I turned sixteen yesterday."

A stormtrooper walked up, "No talking!" I immediately fell silent, but the girl didn't. "Why not?" The stormtrooper made a fist, I felt it coming. In a blink, my hand rose and intercepted the plastroid enveloped fist. I contained every single expletive I wanted to yell out. It hurt, it hurt a lot. Where there had been a slight amount of chatter, the twenty other cadets fell silent. "Cadet, release me." I was too shocked to do anything but comply.

I felt that twinge again, I looked at the other stormtrooper guard, only to see a stun bolt flying at me. "Fek." Then the world went black.

"Ugh," It felt my head was splitting. I cracked open my eyes, then shut them fast as possible, which sadly added to the pain. "Is too bright," I mumbled. The low groan from the shuttle was no longer there, so we must be at the academy. "That is to be expected, full stun blasts aren't much fun." I turned to the voice, it wasn't the girl from the shuttle, the voice was older, grizzled, and male. "Who are you?" I asked as politely as I could. "I'm the academy medical officer." I was shocked, "The Empire has medical officers?" The medic laughed, "You don't know how many times I've been asked that!" A loud crack split the air, I slowly opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was that he had a shaved head, the second were a set of piercing brown eyes, he was human. Something told me he looked older than he was supposed to be, "Hi I'm James," I introduced myself and held out my hand. He looked shocked, like no one ever treated him like a real human being. He hesitantly shook my hand, "I'm medical officer CT-7567" He was a clone? "Do you have a real name?" I asked. He nodded, "They used to call me Rex."

2 weeks later

The next two weeks were grueling I had hardly any time to talk to anybody, the officers in charge had us in and out of the simulators at all times of the day, injections, constant drills, and exercise training. I probably averaged about two hours of sleep a night. Today was going to be different, today we were being transferred into squads, and we'd be able to take an elective class if we wanted to. I was hoping Rex would train me, not as a medic though.

The officer in charge started listing off squadrons and names. I didn't pay attention until there were eight of us left. "Ace squadron: Squad Leader: Annalee Skywalker, Members: James Kenney, Payton Rowland, and Cyrus Yemma. Report to your leaders." I followed the others of my group. I gasped, Annalee was the girl from the shuttle. I heard that she had had the best sim scores out of all of us. "It's you!" both of us spoke at the same time. She started talking, "The trooper just took you after we landed. I thought that he moved you to the stormtrooper academy." I shook my head, "I woke up in the med bay, the medical officer is pretty cool." Everyone but me asked in the same surprised tone, "The Empire has medical officers?" To which I snickered. Skywalker then took charge, sims every day between 0800-1200, then lunch, 1300-2100 constructive time, dinner for half an hour, bed immediately after that. I nodded constructive time was basically 'whatever you wanted to do just don't cause trouble.' I fully intended to use it to get some commando cross training from Rex. Since it was 0730 I decided to go get breakfast.

"Where are you going, cadet?" I turned to the voice, I fell into attention, snapping my arm up in a salute. It was the academy commander! His rank tag declared his name as General CC-2224, "Cafeteria, sir." He nodded, "I understand that you applied for commando training with Medical Officer CC-7567." I nodded, "He said he had cross trained with ARC Troopers, sir." "Make sure you follow his orders to the letter cadet, dismissed." I dropped my arm, and continued to the cafeteria.

After a bland, nutrient filled, breakfast, I reported to the squad simulator room about ten minutes early. I used the time to fit myself into the vac-suit. The blocky, slightly armored, flight suit had its own life-support systems, but in order for the life-support system to work, the suit had to be connected to the TIE fighter. Combined with the lack of shields, missile links, or torpedo tubes. The TIE was a very cheap, fragile craft, lacking any real offensive power, best deployed in swarms.

I absolutely hated it. The main reason I wanted to become a commando was the fact that they could get nonstandard, customized equipment.

The others of my squadron entered the sim room, just as I grabbed my helmet. "Hello." Skywalker greeted me. I just nodded back as I went back to wondering if I could get a specialty fighter, maybe a Z-95. Cyrus looked to Skywalker, "What sim are we doing today?" She pondered for a moment, "Squadron survival." I almost grinned, but I didn't know if that would be a good thing. I'm just trying to have a neutral attitude and expression at all times. The other two squad members groaned, Skywalker gave an evil grin, "First one to fail gets latrine duty." I couldn't help it, I gave a small grin before I asked, "What location?" "Geonosis."

A few minutes later we were all in our sim pods. The simulation began, there was an orange planet in the distance. The planet had a large system of rings. "There's something on my scope, moving fast." I check my instruments, there was something there. "It's too large to be a fighter, but it's too fast to be anything else," reported Payton. "Unless," I began, Annalee finished, "Its more than one fighter." She had my respect now, I'd follow her into a Sith hell. "That's not a computer program," I announced, "We're flying against other pilots." "Any suggestions?" asked Annalee. "We could ambush them in the ring," I spoke up, "Send me and someone else out to scout it out and then lead them back into the targeting sights of the others."

Annalee quickly dished out orders, "James with me, we're going to lead the fighters into the belt. Payton, Cyrus, hide in the rings, take as many out as possible." "Copy that," I acknowledged. Annalee pulled out of the formation, I followed, sticking to her left flank.

We traveled in silence, it took a minute to get in visual range. "X-Wings!" My shout was half horror and adoration, Annalee quickly flipped and high tailed it backwards after firing a few blasts from her TIE's cannons. The blasts dropped the shields of the fighter, I fired a few shots, one shot luckily hit the unshielded fighter. It exploded. As soon as the ship exploded, I turned and followed Annalee. "I don't think they're too happy." I agreed with Skywalker. "Come 'on, channel weapon power to engines," Annalee ordered. I silently complied, the TIE groaned from speed it wasn't designed for. I brought up a status report, the ship would hold. I let out a breath that I didn't know I was holding. A streak of light blasted past my TIE. "They're shooting!" I yelled out while spinning, it was a good trick after all. "I don't think that we're gonna make it." Annalee stated this sadly, I rolled my eyes, "We forgot about the solar energy boosters." I activated them, the TIE started shuddering from the acceleration. I didn't bother checking the hull integrity.

We entered the rings, I immediately shut down the solar energy converter, and routed power back to weapons, I turned and arced around a rock twice the size of my fighter. I ended up behind a pair of X-wings, I let loose on the cannons, destroying one fighter and causing another to crash into a group of small asteroids. None of the rocks could've been bigger than my fist. "Cyrus, Payton, select and engage targets." Skywalker sounded almost ruthless, a huge change from her normal caring tone.

Several lights started flashing on my helmet's HUD, there was a fighter behind me. Just as quick the fighter exploded, "Did you need a little help?" Payton asked. "I was doing just fine," I growled, "I could've handled it." He laughed. "Sure you could've." I switched of the com system, and activated all the sound buffers the TIE had. I barrel rolled back into the fight, everything fell into slow motion, two fighters were following Cyrus, Annalee was hunting those two fighters, three were on her tail and Payton was following them. Cannon blasts were lighting up space.

A plan came to me, I reactivated my solar booster. I diverted it to the laser cannons, "Payton, on my mark, bank to the left, and then come back around to finish the survivors. Annalee, at the same, I need you to pull up. Cyrus, I need a 180 degree turn, now." I made a final adjustment, and fired. "Mark!" The overpowered blast slammed into an asteroid. The TIE sized space rock splintered into hundreds of chunks the size of my fist. Most of them sped towards an area that seemed unimportant, but when the maneuvers were pulled: It was filled with the five remaining X-wings. A millisecond later, the rocks hit the group of enemy fighters.

A fighters shields were designed to stop energy blasts, unlike the shields on a capital ship or a freighter which blocked both physical objects and laser blasts. So when the rocks hit the group of fighters, two exploded after less than a second of being hit by the avalanche of debris. One fighter careened into another, and both plumed up in a flame that lasted just enough for it to register in my eyes. The last fighter, whether by skill or luck had weaved through the explosions which had pushed the asteroids away from the lucky/skilled fighter. Payton and Annalee set themselves upon the task of destroying it. They played cat and mouse for some time, taking potshots, until the one of the X-wing's S-foils was blown off. Without the stabilizers it spun off and fell into Geonosis' gravity well.

The simulator screen blacked out. I got out, and took off the helmet, the others were in the same position. The simulators looked like TIEs without the solar panels on the sides, the 'arms' were attached to a ring so they could spin and lean forward and backwards. The cockpits were loaded with electronics to mime other aspects of the fighter, like space, g-forces, and damages.

I hopped of the top of the sim, and moved to my locker. I started to change from the flight suit into the cadet uniform. Suddenly, officers came into the room, followed by a squadron, there was ten in this particular squadron. I froze when I saw the emblem on their shoulders, interceptor pilots. Interceptor pilots can basically do whatever they want, because they're casualty rates were so high, commanders thought they should live what's left of their life to the fullest. "Sir?" I asked. "Who's your commander?" I pointed to Annalee, "Commander Skywalker, Sir." He walked towards Annalee, "You and your squad need to report to the Generals office." She stepped forward, "On what grounds? Sir."

"For cheating."


End file.
